“It’s like men are vegetable soup. You can’t put them on a plate or eat them off the counter.
So women are the pot. They heat them up. They hold them. They contain them.
But who wants to be a pot?
Who the hell said we’re not soup?”
– Joyce Ramsay, Mad Men
So women are the pot. They heat them up. They hold them. They contain them.
But who wants to be a pot?
Who the hell said we’re not soup?”
– Joyce Ramsay, Mad Men
One day, as I was watching CNN's The Sixties episode chronicling the rise of the feminist movement, I remembered an episode of that other brilliant show about a bygone era, Mad Men.The Beautiful Girls showed the layers of difficulty women faced back then, from the dismissiveness with which their contribution to the workplace was viewed ("She died like she lived – surrounded by the people she answered phones for," said Roger following the demise of Miss Blankenship) to Dr. Faye's feeling of inadequacy following her missed connection with Don's daughter (her lack of maternal inclination seen as a failure, despite her successful career). There was much to unpack in those multi-layered storylines about the show's lead females. But what stuck with me was the quote above from a peripheral character: Joyce Ramsay, Peggy's pot-smoking, lesbian, Life magazine assistant photo editor friend (that actress Zosia Mamet can play both Joyce on Mad Men and Shoshanna on Girls still blows my mind).
Upon hearing Joyce's words, my first instict was to think, how great that in this day and age, things aren't so black and white. Depending on circumstances, women too can be the soup while men play the role of pot. We have evolved, and for that I am grateful.
But then I thought again. Does it have to be one or the other? Must one person be charged with containing and supporting the other while the other provides substance and sustainance? Don't we all deserve the opportunity to be soup? Is there another option? What if we were more like those delicious little soup dumplings—self-contained and brimming with juice and substance. Can't we all enjoy each other's warmth, support and substance as we sit in this little bamboo steamer of life?
Just some food for thought ...
Upon hearing Joyce's words, my first instict was to think, how great that in this day and age, things aren't so black and white. Depending on circumstances, women too can be the soup while men play the role of pot. We have evolved, and for that I am grateful.
But then I thought again. Does it have to be one or the other? Must one person be charged with containing and supporting the other while the other provides substance and sustainance? Don't we all deserve the opportunity to be soup? Is there another option? What if we were more like those delicious little soup dumplings—self-contained and brimming with juice and substance. Can't we all enjoy each other's warmth, support and substance as we sit in this little bamboo steamer of life?
Just some food for thought ...
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